A presentation from the fourth colloquium on the legal profession held in March 2005. This paper attempts to advance the “justice ethic” by focusing on cultural competence as an example of the need for the understanding of professionalism to change in response to changing social contexts, and consider how the skills, attitude and values of cultural competence may form part of a clinical law program.

The Chief Justice of Ontario's Advisory Committee on Professionalism was created in September 2000 to maintain and encourage those aspects of the practice of law that make it a learned and proud profession. Composed of representatives of the judiciary, the Law Society, the legal academy and various legal and county law organizations, the Committee acts as a steering committee and a clearinghouse to generate ideas and to make recommendations to other organizations and individuals within the legal community about initiatives to enhance professionalism.